[HN Gopher] Why I hate the index finger (1980)
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Why I hate the index finger (1980)
Author : consumer451
Score : 113 points
Date : 2024-11-19 00:35 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
| gnabgib wrote:
| (1980)
| consumer451 wrote:
| Updated, thanks. But the hilarity is timeless.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| That was unexpectedly hilarious, wow.
| consumer451 wrote:
| Is there much of this type of thing hiding on PubMed?
|
| Not a source I had previously associated with top-tier humor.
| jaggederest wrote:
| I believe every year The Canadian Medical Association Journal
| publishes a mostly-humorous edition around Christmas. And
| there's a long history of satire in NEJM, BMJ, The Lancet,
| etc
|
| I particularly enjoy this one (PDF):
|
| http://cda.psych.uiuc.edu/multivariate_fall_2013/salmon_fmri.
| ..
| consumer451 wrote:
| Thanks. I think I found another good one, though more
| technical than OP.
|
| > The case of the disappearing teaspoons: longitudinal
| cohort study of the displacement of teaspoons in an
| Australian research institute
|
| https://www.bmj.com/content/331/7531/1498
| genewitch wrote:
| that... isn't... satire. It's written in a funny way
| because it was a "silly"[0] experiment, but it showed a
| real issue with fMRI.
|
| > What we can conclude is that random noise in the EPI
| timeseries may yield spurious results if multiple testing
| is not controlled for. In a functional image volume of
| 60,000-130,000 voxels the probability of a false discovery
| is almost certain.
|
| [0] silly as in "there's no way this fMRI will show the
| frozen salmon as alive, right?"
| jaggederest wrote:
| I think we run into the definition of satire and parody,
| here.
|
| Satire is "the truth, in the most extreme way", so I
| think it definitely qualifies to very, very seriously
| examine a dead salmon with an fMRI to see if it has brain
| activity.
|
| It's not a parody - they actually did the study, and the
| results were as described, not an imitation journal
| article ala The Onion.
| dingnuts wrote:
| That may be one definition of satire but it strikes me as
| controversial or incomplete and when I search online for
| it, I only find this comment.
|
| I think you're coining a definition to fit your purpose.
| If you want to argue that the article fits some
| definition of satire you need to actually provide a
| reference to a definition that is accepted by more people
| than just you. You can't just put quotation marks around
| your personal definition; that's not how it works.
|
| I find your definition of satire to be unsatisfactory and
| reject it, pending further documentation.
| jaggederest wrote:
| Ok, quoth Oxford:
|
| > the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to
| expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices,
| particularly in the context of contemporary politics and
| other topical issues.
|
| In this case, they're using an analysis which is commonly
| used to "show activity" in various psychological and
| psychiatric contexts to "show activity" in a dead salmon.
| This directly exaggerates ("truth, but in the most
| extreme way" is about exaggeration, in my definition) and
| shows the futility of trying to draw significant results
| without screening for random chance among thousands of
| comparisons.
|
| A comparison I'd make is to arch-satirist Jonathan
| Swift's "modest proposal" - it described a real problem
| (i.e. famine in Ireland) and skewered by exaggeration the
| English tendency to prescribe solutions that affected
| none of the core issues as though they knew best and
| could overcome English exploitation, greed, and callous
| disregard by the right public policy.
| ARandumGuy wrote:
| Satire needs a target to actually be satire. Something
| can be silly, lighthearted, or humorous without being
| satire. On the flip side, satire itself doesn't actually
| need to be funny to be effective satire.
|
| So for your example, what is the dead salmon study
| satirizing? Is there some other study that did something
| similar that they're making fun of? Is there a broader
| scientific movement that they're criticizing?
|
| I concede that there may be a target that I'm not aware
| of. But I find it more likely that someone just said
| "what if we put a dead fish in an fMRI", and their
| colleagues found it funny enough to actually do. Many
| scientists have a sense of humor, and will absolutely do
| something just because they think it would be funny.
| jaggederest wrote:
| > So for your example, what is the dead salmon study
| satirizing? Is there some other study that did something
| similar that they're making fun of? Is there a broader
| scientific movement that they're criticizing?
|
| Yes. fMRI studies are used to "prove" this and that about
| cortex activation under certain kinds of tasks, and
| they're demonstrating that even a dead salmon shows
| significant activity under fMRI if you analyze it "in the
| standard way". Thus, it's absurd to draw conclusions in a
| psychological or psychiatric context without screening
| for false positives.
|
| The arch-satirist Jonathan Swift is always my archetype.
| A modest proposal was about the famine in Ireland, but
| more than that, it was about a certain kind of English
| attitude that external technocracy could solve problems
| in the face of exploitation and callous disregard.
| smitelli wrote:
| "Remember, you cannot make normal more normal because that is
| abnormal."
|
| I will indeed remember that.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Worth the read.
|
| I am so worried that we as a society have lost the ability to
| write well, and risk losing the ability to recognize and
| appreciate good writing. Rote professional written communication
| skills are changing and diminishing. The written word is
| generally seen to be a burden. Anyways, bittersweet thoughts from
| a really funny article.
| MrMcCall wrote:
| This place really is good practice for all sorts of skills:
| expressive, physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual.
| And beyond learning about various zones of my beloved nerdtech,
| there are very subtle levels of sociology, anthropology, and
| psychology on display here, too.
|
| But yeah, the decline is real, my friend. I declined to use IRC
| for all these years, and I'm afraid its descendant, texting,
| has not improved our society's level of anything beyond the
| most mundane trivial pursuits.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| I think this is a poor example of "society writing well". It
| reads like a medical journal. I personally hate it and couldn't
| get through it.
| nuz wrote:
| Well this is from the 80s when writing was still quite
| respected and practiced
| blt wrote:
| Thanks to LLMs, the death of stylish writing in non-literary
| fields is assured. I agree, many people seem to view writing as
| a burden.
|
| I have only met a handful of people that can lay out a complex
| argument from scratch in speech alone. For most of us, writing
| is thinking. If you avoid writing, your ideas will remain murky
| forever.
| codexb wrote:
| Up until recently, there always seemed to be a marked
| difference between the way people spoke vs how they conveyed
| thoughts in writing. These days, it often feels like most
| writing is just conversational and stream of consciousness and
| differs little from how many people speak.
|
| It always makes me curious how we generally view the people of
| antiquity as speaking very eloquently and properly, but that's
| probably because we only have writings from their time, not
| recordings of how they actually spoke.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-our-team-over...
|
| It's really important, ok?
| rob74 wrote:
| All those cartoons had it right all along: four fingers per hand
| is more than enough!
| MrMcCall wrote:
| I'm rather ambivalent about the index finger. The middle finger,
| however...
| rob74 wrote:
| Look at it this way: if there was no index finger, you wouldn't
| have a middle finger either...
| azangru wrote:
| > if there was no index finger, you wouldn't have a middle
| finger either
|
| You would have two :-)
| valicord wrote:
| No, you'd actually have two middle fingers then: upper middle
| finger and lower middle finger. Just think of the
| possibilities!
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| I guess if you lose all but one finger on a hand then, among
| other things, you will be unable to point at anything with it
| without flipping someone off.
| MrMcCall wrote:
| Call it a feature, not a bug ;-)
| dogman1050 wrote:
| My ring finger is on my mind presently. It's turned into a
| trigger finger from riding a stiff clutch motorcycle for a week
| nine months ago. If bent too close to my palm it doesn't come
| back without help. It's interfering with my Spiderman web
| shooter operation. Must have it looked at.
| MrMcCall wrote:
| That's interesting. My wife's cooking has done it to her ring
| finger as well. She spoke to a hand orthopedist, but he said
| that she'd be out of action for weeks if they did the
| procedute that shaves it, so they just gave her a shot of
| roids to help it calm down. They can do that up to three
| times before they need to do the shaving procedure. Good luck
| with it, Spidey ;-)
| engineer_22 wrote:
| Having experienced mallet finger in the past, I might
| consider wearing a splint for a couple weeks to let it heal
| iwontberude wrote:
| Whoever wrote this was creating satire and I don't even know if
| they realize it.
| consumer451 wrote:
| People still surprise me, but given this part, it's hard for me
| to imagine that the author was not being satirical on purpose:
|
| > Obviously, I do not like arrogant disabled index digits and
| believe they should be removed if they cannot be restored to a
| functional status. There is no in-between with index fingers.
|
| > To me, index fingers portray a hideous personality reflecting
| conceit and pantywaist attitudes. In essence, they are smart-
| ass digits we can often do without. If I had to lose a finger
| and had my choice, I would choose first my nondominant hand
| index ray and next the other index. I find index digits easy to
| hate and sometimes hard to love.
|
| Although, maybe the author's point was serious?
| idlewords wrote:
| If you read through carefully, the author is making a serious
| point: that in many cases of injury to the index finger, it
| is better functionally and cosmetically to remove it. He
| cites examples of patients with chronic pain or burning in
| the stump, and patients who have the remaining portion of the
| finger permanently extended, facilitating re-injury.
|
| I'm no fingerologist but I do appreciate anyone who can make
| serious points in such a funny way.
| consumer451 wrote:
| I definitely noticed that, but if the goal was to convey a
| serious point, then would that be best served by humorous
| delivery?
|
| That's the confusion I was trying to express by saying:
| "Although, maybe the author's point was serious?"
| dnsco wrote:
| The point the author is making seems to be against the
| consensus of other hand specialists (this is at least my
| perception, as someone who has an index finger issue and
| has asked specialists "can't I just cut it off?").
|
| The author is basically (and provocatively) saying "Are
| you kidding me? You really think it's useful for people
| to continue to be burdened with non-functional
| appendages?" to his colleagues, and I think the humor is
| likely to get them to engage with his thesis rather than
| dismiss it off hand.
|
| I have sent this to several doctor friends, and the
| writing style prompted them to send it to several more,
| so, I think it's quite likely that tone served the
| author's point.
| consumer451 wrote:
| I was going to ask you about this on your top-level
| comment, so thanks for finding my confusion and
| responding. That is super interesting. Wow.
| dnsco wrote:
| I partially amputated (at the joint closest to the nail) my index
| finger a decade ago, and it's been a huge impediment. This has
| motivated me to seek out some other opinions.
|
| Sent it to some doctor friends and they are floored by the
| writing style as well.
| sph wrote:
| It's hard for me to rationalise that a few cms off the index
| could be a huge impediment, so can you please share where you
| find yourself impaired the most? I imagine gripping things,
| like a glass, should be more or less unaffected.
| dnsco wrote:
| TL;DR nerves are really weird.
|
| It tingles all the time. There's a ton of "referred pain". It
| frequently feels like there is a dental drill going of in my
| face, when it's not painful, it's a a persistent nagging
| tickle, on my cheek/temple/around my eye.
|
| It gets reynauds phenomena, my house is 68F 20C right now,
| but my finger is freezing/painful because of how cold it is,
| this happens pretty much any time I wash my hand, so even in
| the summer when there's a slight breeze I'm hiding my hand in
| my pocket for warmth.
|
| When I bang it on things it really hurts, and like this paper
| says it's extended basically all the time when I'm trying to
| use my hand for other things.
|
| When I use it to grab things, it feels really weird, so I've
| kind of trained myself to keep it out of the way. This paper
| says cut it off, which the few other orthopedists I've talked
| to have not advised, but at this point, it's been a decade,
| and seeing a doctor be like "dude, the thing that's only
| there to make your hand more precise, is actually making your
| hand way less precise and detracting from your quality of
| life, cut it off", is a perspective I'm happy to hear. I
| manage mostly alright, but it's been a decade of major
| annoyance at best.
| Zancarius wrote:
| This is really fascinating to me, because it explains some
| things.
|
| I have a friend who crushed the tip of one of her fingers,
| but it wasn't amputated. She's described sensations very
| similar to yours, presumably from nerve damage. I never
| asked a bunch of questions about it, and now I wish I had
| after reading this post.
|
| If it ever comes up in conversation again, may I share a
| link to your comment with her?
| buildsjets wrote:
| I lost the tip of my right thumb on a planer, but kept the
| joint. I experience similar phenomena. The worst thing is
| pushing a supermarket shopping cart on a rough surface, the
| vibrations it sends into my hand are intensely painful.
| Also iDevice touchscreens hate my nub.
| ninalanyon wrote:
| "When you make the patient your enthusiastic ally in
| reconstructive surgery, you can get him to fly with six or eight
| small feathers."
|
| That is just brilliant. The article was an object lesson in
| clarity and humanity.
| navigate8310 wrote:
| Quite a jarring and informative article. I had no clue how
| finicky muscles are and bad amputation may result net negative
| results to the patient.
| leoc wrote:
| Probably most experienced drumkit players don't generally use
| their index fingers either (except when playing the ride cymbal).
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| It's useful for fast finger strokes
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| I mean if the middle finger is that versatile and important it's
| great that we have less important fingers providing a buffer on
| both sides of it.
|
| Ablative fingering, what an innovation.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| As an older competitive gamer, I liked the part of this that
| describes how on injury or amputation the middle finger will
| quickly take over the index duties - I've noticed over the years
| that when my "trigger" finger on a controller is experiencing
| tendonitis and I have to rest it, that my middle finger performs
| just as adequately and I barely notice. This has always surprised
| me.
| onelesd wrote:
| This article is giving Kurt Vonnegut and I love it.
| flint wrote:
| I play string bass. Many suggest you focus your attention through
| the thumb of your left hand as you practice.
| picometer wrote:
| I'm a violinist (amateur but play regularly). When I have an
| important note, which is held for a while and needs vibrato, I
| frequently decide to shift my left hand position so that my
| middle finger is responsible, rather than the index finger. It
| feels stronger, easier to nail the intonation (pitch) with
| precision, and freer to perform the desired type of vibrato.
| (String players do vibrato by wiggling the left hand finger,
| which affects the pitch and overtones / oscillation modes of the
| string.) In fact, I tend to avoid using the index finger on notes
| that require vibrato.
|
| That preference might be explained here, by the
| precision/strength combination. I tried holding a hammer as
| described in the author's hammer exercise, and there's
| similarity, though it requires much more weight-holding. The left
| hand doesn't hold the weight of the violin (consider a cello or a
| guitar with shoulder strap), but a little grip strength is
| required to securely hold down the string, especially with
| vibrato.
|
| Overall, fascinating article. I feel quite motivated to read more
| on hand anatomy and biomechanics.
| throw4847285 wrote:
| Well it worked for Roland Deschain...
| excalibur wrote:
| IIRC Roland lost his middle finger as well and had to pull the
| trigger with his ring finger.
| Ancalagon wrote:
| Hilariously, I anecdotally also can relate to this. I'm a
| competitive powerlifter and the calluses on my hands and fingers
| are most pronounced on the middle, ring, and pinky - with very
| little on the index.
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